MOTOR SPORT/FORMULA ONE MONACO GRAND PRIX:MONACO'S STATUS as Formula One's crown jewel, its classic of classics is founded on the notion that this is a circuit where the men are separated from the boys, where glamour meets grit and where steely focus and nerveless bravery triumph over engineering brawn. All too often it's a fallacy. Modern Formula One struggles around the anachronistic streets of the Principality. The cars are too fast for the winding streets, the streets too narrow to prevent anything other than procession.
Unless it rains.
Rain in Monaco is the ingredient that elevates this singular event to classic status and yesterday, through the spray, grime and inevitable debris of a rain-lashed race Lewis Hamilton raised the Monaco Grand Prix to the heights it can achieve.
The Briton's weekend had all the right story-telling elements: fastest in practice on Thursday morning, eclipsed by tenths of a second in the afternoon, but on the form shown expected to dominate in qualifying. Then in the Saturday shoot-out Ferrari sprang a surprise, Felipe Massa taking a pole position he admitted was "just unbelievable". Hamilton was relegated to third on the grid behind championship leader Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari.
Hamilton was shocked but spoke of his faith in his team's strategy. And in the forecasted rain. And on Sunday morning it arrived, in spluttering waves, the streets washed clean on the grip-enhancing rubber laid down by the drivers in the days before. In the casino city, the lottery was on.
At the start Hamilton did what was expected. As Massa held his lead into the first corner Raikkonen failed to get away cleanly and the McLaren driver pounced, stealing into second, right on Massa's tail. But then an added twist. Hamilton, losing touch with Massa in the opening laps, desperately tried to up the pace - and lost control. On lap seven he clipped the barrier into the harbour-side Tabac corner and ruptured his rear right tyres, his McLaren skittering left and right as he tried to regain control and nurse the car back to pitlane. His pursuit of the win looked over.
But rain in Monaco makes all things possible. The unscheduled stop strangely played into Hamilton's hands. With significant fuel on board, and the leaders a long way ahead of the pack, the McLaren driver rejoined in fifth and as the carnage continued, with Alonso hitting the wall, followed soon after by Red Bull Racing's David Coulthard and Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais, the safety car was soon released to control the chaos, giving Hamilton the chance to close the gap to the leaders.
Ahead, Massa spun, allowing Robert Kubica to take the lead. Raikkonen was hit with a drive-through penalty and later spun and damaged his front wing. The incidents piled up and through it all Hamilton's heavy fuel load began to dissipate and his pace began to increase. The rain abated, the track began to dry and Hamilton began to close, lapping between one and three seconds faster than second-placed Massa. As Massa and BMW's Kubica pitted and Hamilton ploughed ahead, control of the race fell to him.
By the time the Briton made his final stop and took on dry weather tyres on lap 53, his lead was nearly 40 seconds, and he had no trouble rejoining comfortably ahead.
That slipped in the final moments when Nico Rosberg smashed into the wall in the swimming pool section, bringing out the safety car for the last time but by then the day was done. Hamilton's classic was complete.
"This has got to be the highlight of my career, and it will be the highlight for the rest of my life," he said afterwards. "Even if I win here again, which I plan on doing, this is the best one . . . It was the most fun I've ever had in a race. Incredible, an incredible feeling. The last 20 laps were very emotional."
With Kubica second and Massa third, Red Bull's Mark Webber flashed home a solid fourth, the Australian rewarded for a controlled drive that could have come unstuck after he took on dry weather tyres too early and dropped from fourth to sixth.
But that was before the small tragedy of the afternoon. The new Force India team's young German driver Adrian Sutil had driven an immaculate race to climb to an improbably fourth place and laps from home looked a safe bet to secure the team's first points of the season in the showcase race.
But on the exit from the tunnel the chasing Raikkonen lost control and slammed into the rear of the Force India car. Sutil crawled back to the pits and was forced to retire and was left head in hands in the garage. Raikkonen, another new nose cone fitted, finished ninth.
Sebastian Vettel scored Toro Rosso's best result of the season in taking fifth and was followed home by Honda's Rubens Barrichello and Willams' Kazuki Nakajima, with the final point going to McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.
